News, opinions, commentary, history and a little creative writing from a proud African-American transwoman about the world around her.

Wednesday, September 02, 2015

We're Still Winning, But Have Much Work To Do

"We will lose more transgender people to violence. The Remembering Our Dead list will get longer. The anti-transgender rhetoric coming from their acolytes will get nastier and more hateful. They will try to spin and twist Bible verses to favor their immoral positions. But in the end the result will still be the same and the neo-fascists will lose. "
TransGriot June 14,2007, 'We're Winning

I wrote those words eight years ago, and they are as applicable today as when I penned them after returning back to Louisville from having spent several days lobbying in Washington DC.

It's a best of times and worst of times scenario for us. We have unprecedented visibility with multiple cable TV shows and movies being released with trans characters, documentaries being produced that focus on our trans elders like Miss Major and Marsha P. Johnson, and trans people walking fashion runways.

We have people seeking to learn more about our trans lives. We have ongoing scholarly research being conducted that helps add to the increasing data and knowledge we have concerning transsexualtiy. More jurisdictions are passing laws to protect our human rights. Schools and colleges are enacting policies that help facilitate us getting our educations. Even the US armed forces are planning to remove the ban on open trans military service. We have even shown up and shown out in the White House halls to own our power.

But it has also been a violent year in which we have lost 17 trans women, with the majority of them being trans women of color. We still are dealing with crushing unemployment and underemployment. HIV infection rates amongst us are still too high as we fight to get the agencies that help us cope with the HIV/AIDS epidemic to recognize our humanity statistically and as a fact.

But despite all of that mixed news, were winning. Understanding of trans issues is exponentially increasing. We have allies who do get the point that trans women are women and trans men are men. We have more families in our ranks who wish to love their trans kids instead of throw them out of their homes.

But we still have far too many people wallowing in willful faith based ignorance about our trans lives. Far too many HBCUs do not have trans friendly policies and support for us when we hit their campuses. We have far too many Black ministers working to condemn us instead of role modeling unconditional love for us.

And yes, we have ongoing work to do internally in terms of building sisterhood in our chocolate trans ranks. We need to continue to build working partnerships with our trans brothers and our cis allies. We`also have some cis women who adamantly refuse to recognize our womanhood, and they need to recognize we don't want to fight with you, we want to unite to tackle the problems that affect all women cis and trams

And we trans peeps still have to fight to get people to recognize that our Black trans lives matter, too. Every breath a trans person takes is a revolutionary act, and it is past time for our fellow African-Americans to realize that we didn't forfeit our Black Cards when we transitioned. Being Black and trans are not mutually exclusive, and those Black Cards are still valid even after we transition. .

We're winning, but the work to make trans human rights a reality and to have our humanity respected and protected in the laws of this nation is ongoing.

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About The TransGriot

Monica Roberts, AKA the TransGriot (Gree-oh) is a native Houstonian, GLAAD award nominated blogger, writer, and award winning trans human rights advocate. She's the founding editor of TransGriot, and her writing has appeared at the Bilerico Project, Ebony.com, The Huffington Post and the Advocate.
She works to foster understanding and acceptance of trans people inside and outside communities of color and was recently honored with the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award

TransGriot Blog Mission Statement

The TransGriot blog's mission is to become the griot of our community. I will introduce you to and talk about your African descended trans brothers and trans sisters across the Diaspora, reclaim and document our chocolate flavored trans history, speak truth to power, comment on the things that impact our trans community from an Afrocentric perspective and enlighten you about the general things that go on around me and in the communities that I am a member of.

--Mission Statement compiled January 2, 2011

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Feel free to leave comments on the posts. But bear in mind that you are guests in my cyberhome. As soon as I get to them, your comments are posted at my pleasure.

They will post as soon as I approve them, so no need to repeat sending them.

I strive to make it a safe zone for people to respectfully express themselves, but I have zero tolerance for hate speech, blatantly disrespectful comments or ad spam.

2014 GLAAD Media Awards Outstanding Blog Finalist

2011 BWA Best LGBT Blog Finalist

2010 BWA Judges' Vote Winner Best LGBT Blog

2015-2016 NLGJA Member

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The TransGriot is available for speaking engagements, college lectures, panel discussions, media interviews, conferences or Trans 101 education efforts for your school, business or professional organizations.

For local Houston area, Texas or national events, you can e-mail me at transgriot@yahoo.com

For events outside the Houston metro area, I ask that my travel and lodging expenses be covered.

This is separate from my speaking fee.

If you are interested in having me appear as a speaker or panelist, you can e-mail me with the date and details of your proposed event.

Please book as early as possible because my speaking and event calendar slots during the year rapidly fill up.

CMBA Disclaimer

This personal blog allows me to express my constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment free speech rights and kick knowledge to y'all at the same time on various issues.

Nothing in it shall be construed, spun, remixed, altered or interpreted to mean it represents the views of my employers or the boards of the organizations that I sit on.

Photos and videos posted to this blog are used for illustrative purposes only and unless noted in the post or linked article, photos/videos don't indicate or are not intended to imply the person depicted in said photo/video is transgender